Ukraine Emergency Appeal

Aid to the Church in Need  is sending immediate emergency aid to strengthen the Catholic Church in Ukraine in its commitment to stay on the ground and keep serving its flock in the face of material and economic war.

Bishop Mykola Bychok CSsR, the Eparch for the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Australia, New Zealand and Oceania, has given his support to ACN's emergency appeal for Ukraine. “I give my blessing to this appeal of Aid to the Church in Need to seek financial and spiritual support for the Catholic Church in Ukraine. I thank the people of Australia for reaching out to their brothers and sisters in Christ at this difficult time. May the Lord protect Ukraine and allow the Church to continue to shine as a light and hope for the people.”

ACN’s support for Ukraine dates back to the 1950s when we started helping the seminary for Eastern Europeans who had emigrated. In 1991, Cardinal Myroslav Lubachivsky, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, returned from exile, and we began to rebuild church structures - liquidated by the communists in 1946. Since 1994, ACN has invested in the building and upkeep of the Greek Catholic and Latin Seminaries. 

Over the past ten years, we have been supporting the building and renovation of many churches (385 projects), monasteries (191 projects), and presbyteries (143 projects), as well as supporting candidates for the priesthood for the Latin Catholic and Greek Catholic churches. Currently, we support more than 900 seminarians in the country.

Ukraine is therefore an important country for ACN and we will continue doing all we can to help our brothers and sisters here to be strengthened in their faith and that they may continue to be a light in Ukraine which is surrounded by so much tension and conflict. 

This special appeal will help priests and religious, who are working across the country in parishes, with refugees, in orphanages and homes for the elderly. The main cities where we are sending immediate help are Kyiv, Kharkiv, Zaporizhya, Odessa and the region of Donetsk.

Update on ACN's help in Ukraine:

Basic products, medicines, clothes, and food are arriving in small trucks to the diocese of Kamianets-Podilski to alleviate the crisis caused by the war in Ukraine.  Emergency aid has reached many parts of the diocese, such as Vinnytsia, 245 kilometres south of Kiev, where Sisters distribute food to women and children sheltering at the main railway station, or the neighbouring town of Nemyriv, where Father Ruslan Karmalita of St. Joseph's parish distributes aid to displaced families. In Starokostiantyniv, a town in the same diocese, a small group of health professionals accompanies and supervises the distribution of medicines.  

The Auxiliary Bishop of the diocese, Mgr Radoslaw Zmitrowicz, remains especially close to the local population in these difficult times, and listens to and shares with all his faithful. In a message to ACN, the Bishop says: "Dear friends, thank you very much, we receive your help. May God bless you for this sign of solidarity for our priests and nuns."

ACN has begun its second phase of aid to Ukraine where significant financial assistance will go directly to the religious, priests, and seminarians who have been hosting and caring for the millions of displaced Ukrainians who are in need of refuge and both physical and spiritual sustenance, as they try to make their way to the borders. A total of about 1 million AUD has already been approved for this new aid package, with close to 296,000 AUD to be added later (currently pending approval). In addition to this sum, ACN has approved 27 projects totaling about 850,000 AUD in Mass stipends for Ukrainian priests. 

Can you provide aid to the Catholic people in Ukraine? They need your help!

To stay updated on the situation in Ukraine go here.

Prayers for Ukraine go here.